Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.
There is an old saying that goes something like this: “If the camel gets his nose in the tent, the rest of him is soon to follow.”
The mental image this creates in my mind seems funny to me. The lonely camel wanting to be inside the tent with his master. It is cold outside, and nice and warm in the tent. Somehow he gets his nose under the tent flap and is able to wiggle it in just a little. Later, his whole head is in the tent. While the camel’s head is small enough, the rest of the camel is not. By the time he has wiggled his whole body into the tent, all the tent pegs are dangling from their strings. The tent is now little more than a blanket on the back of the camel.
The story is a great metaphor for many things. How many bad habits start with something small and innocuous? Only later do they take over a person’s whole life and destroy it. How many people are in debt over their heads because they allowed themselves to get a credit card? The little plastic card seems so innocent, and yet it can lead to uncontrolled spending and enslavement to debt.
But these are all examples of bad things that happen. What about good? Does the camel ever represent something good happening? If we tweak the metaphor a bit we can illustrate today’s verse in a new light.
Continue reading “The Nose of the Camel – John 13: 20”